Oakland: ‘Kindest person’ is named city’s Mother of Year

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Malia Lusia Latu Saulala accepts the 2017 Mother of the Year award from the city of Oakland from Parks and Recreation Director J. Nicholas Williams. Annalee Allen, the city’s 2013 Mother of the Year, speaks at right. (Sarah Tan/For Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND — Although she doesn’t have a driver’s license and can’t drive a car, Maxwell Park resident Malia Lusia Latu Saulala has still managed to make a reputation for herself as one of Oakland’s most active volunteers.

On Saturday, in the Morcom Rose Garden, the city of Oakland honored Saulala as this year’s Mother of the Year for her dedication to bettering youth and her community.

Since 1978, Saulala has been an engaged member of the Maxwell Park Neighborhood Council, as well as a volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America, her Oakland hills church — the Oakland California Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and local schools.

Over the past decade, Saulala has also provided assistance to more than 2,000 adults and seniors. Saulala, a 2014 graduate of the Oakland Police Citizen Academy, volunteers with
the Oakland Police Department and takes part in the department’s open house, toy drive and Thanksgiving giveaway.

“Malia is the kindest person and someone truly special,” Diane Burr, the 1994 Mother of the Year, said. “The woman you see here today is the person she will be for the rest of our duration together.”

The Mother of the Year Award, now in its 64th year, recognizes a community member who symbolizes the “finest traditions of ‘motherhood.”

Saulala is also the mother of five biological children and six adopted children. She is religious, and Burr remembers walking in on a Bible study Saulala was leading where all the children were so engaged none of them noticed a visitor had dropped in.

“Malia genuinely cares, and she’s up at 5 a.m. to open up the church for young people so they can be safe,” Burr added.

Jose Dorado of the Maxwell Park Neighborhood Council added that in his time of knowing Saulala, she has always been a generous neighbor and friend.

“There is a saying, ‘They don’t care how much you know, they want to know how much you care,’ and Malia is the embodiment of that, and that’s been the key to her success,” he said. “When you mention Malia to anyone in the Boy Scouts office, they know who you’re talking about.”

Her daughter Anna Basurto added that though her mother was always busy, and that she sometimes had to play chauffeur to bring her mother to all her meetings, she admires Saulala because she led by example.

“She was literally everywhere, going to meetings right after work, and she was never home,” Basurto said. “But I thank her. She has a heart of gold and the heart of a lion. She will not give up.”

She added that it was at her mother’s forceful urging that she attended the Oakland Police Department’s Explore program for youth.

Today, she is still a part of the police department, something she credits partially to Saulala.

“To this day, she will always be my number one supporter and role model and super hero,” Basurto said.

With lower home prices, more Californians could afford a home purchase in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the previous quarter, but the California Association of Realtors reports higher interest rates lowered affordability from the previous year for most counties.